If you’ve spent any time reading the countless number of Internet marketing blogs, forums and other websites, you’ve probably heard of the phrase “content is king.” While social media, branding and web design are all important elements in creating a successful online presence, nothing holds more value than good content, which is exactly the message being conveyed in this phrase.

The phrase “content is king” is somewhat of a misnomer, though, because content alone isn’t going to turn a website into a success. You can publish a countless number of articles and/or blog posts to your site, but it’s not going to help unless it’s quality content. When you provide visitors with content they actually want to read, everything will begin to fall into place as your website gradually climbs up the rankings while generating more and more traffic with each passing month.

What’s The Most Important Website Element To Google?

No, it’s not the number of backlinks a website has, how many characters are in the domain name, how fast it loads, or the traffic it receives. According to the Google, high-quality content is the “single most important thing to do.” That’s a pretty bold statement coming from the world’s largest and most successful search engine company.

“Provide high-quality content on your pages, especially your homepage. This is the single most important thing to do. If your pages contain useful information, their content will attract many visitors and entice webmasters to link to your site. In creating a helpful, information-rich site, write pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic. Think about the words users would type to find your pages and include those words on your site,” wrote Google on their official website.

Generates More Traffic

Good content translates into more traffic for your website. This happens for a couple of different reasons, one of which is the simple fact that more of your site’s pages will show up in Google and other search engines. As you begin to add more content to your site, Google will index these pages and rank them accordingly. Generally speaking, the more pages you have indexed by Google, the more traffic you’ll receive.

If you keep an eye on your website’s analytics, you’ll find traffic comes from a variety of sources to access your content. Google may account for a large portion (assuming your site ranks well), but social media, forum posts, blogs and other sources can also yield valuable traffic to your content pages.

The boost in traffic alone is reason enough to invest your time and energy into content creation, but there are other benefits worth noting as well.

Attracts Natural Backlinks

Another reason why your website needs good content is because it attracts backlinks. Even with all of the changes Google has made to their algorithm over the years, backlinks remain a critical signal in determining a site’s ranking. However, Google explicitly states that manipulating outbound links is a direct violation to their Webmaster Guidelines, which may result in negative action taking against the offending site.

So, how do you build backlinks without violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines? The answer is simple: publish high-quality content that people enjoy reading. Visitors will share it on their social media accounts and other websites will begin linking back to it without any action taken on your part; thus, creating natural backlinks.

Search Engines Read It

Search engines constantly crawl and index webpages 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to determine where and how they should be ranked. If your site contains a plethora of content related to the home renovations and improvement, for instance, then some of your pages will likely show up for home renovation/renovation related keywords.

Search engines don’t have the ability to fully read flash animations, images or video, but they can read text. If you want to rank for specific keyword related to your niche or industry, you should get into the habit of publishing articles or blog posts about the keyword on a regular basis. As Google, Bing and Yahoo bots crawl your website, they’ll notice your content and take it into consideration when ranking your pages. Of course, there are a countless number of other factors used by Google to determine a website’s rank, but content holds the most value.

Establish Yourself as an Authority

Your website’s content is a direct reflection of your business. Visitors who access who land on a site and discover a range of well-written, informative content will view the business as being an authority figure in its respective niche/industry. But poor content can have the opposite effect, sending the message of unprofessionalism to the site’s visitors.

Here are some tips on how to produce stellar content for your website:

• Check Google News, Google Trends and social media for hot topics.
• Write with the end user in mind, not search engines.
• Make your content easy to read by incorporating sub-headings, bold, italics and bulleted lists.
• Include images to help convey meaning.
• Allow visitors to comment on your content.
• Proofread your content to ensure there are no spelling or grammar mistakes.